Language Change and Historical Linguistics: Crash Course Linguistics #13 - Free Educational videos for Students in K-12

Language Change and Historical Linguistics: Crash Course Linguistics #13 - By CrashCourse

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00:0-1	Hi , I'm taylor and welcome to crash course linguistics
00:02	. Language change is a constant . It's why I
00:04	don't speak the same way as Shakespeare and he didn't
00:06	write the same way chaucer did and he didn't write
00:09	Canterbury Tales in the exact same languages . Bay Wolf
00:12	. Each generation takes the language and makes it their
00:14	own pushing it in new directions . Today , small
00:17	changes can be tomorrow's new dialects and those dialects may
00:20	one day be so different , will think of them
00:22	as distinct languages . While no one can predict the
00:25	future of the language , we can look backward in
00:27	time and piece together the path that a language has
00:30	taken . This is a field known as historical linguistics
00:35	. Mhm . To understand the historical path a language
00:47	has taken , we need to know how language change
00:50	happens in the first place . Language change occurs across
00:52	all levels of language , including sounds , words and
00:55	grammar . At the end of the old english period
00:58	of the 11 hundreds , english speakers dropped a lot
01:01	of suffixes , changing the languages grammar . Then between
01:04	1416 100 english went through a major change in the
01:08	pronunciation of vowels known as the great english vowel shift
01:12	. So while languages can change in multiple ways ,
01:15	they don't always change in all areas at once .
01:18	As anyone who has MS heard a song lyric knows
01:20	sometimes we invent words that were never there in the
01:23	first place . Many newer speakers of a language can
01:26	mistake one word for something else or re analyzed the
01:29	language for example , english apron used to be no
01:32	apron , but people heard on apron as an apron
01:37	. Now apron is the standard english word . Sometimes
01:39	innovation happens because people need the language to work better
01:42	for them take english , third person pronouns in old
01:45	english , they were hey hey oh , hit and
01:49	here but these words sound pretty similar so speaker started
01:52	to differentiate them in middle english , heo changed to
01:56	she hit to it and he a became an entirely
01:59	new pronoun barred from old North . They english speakers
02:03	started using they with non specific singular reference like someone
02:07	or anyone in the 14th century . It's something both
02:10	chaucer and Shakespeare . Did the use of singular they
02:13	for a specific person is more recent . In the
02:16	18th century singular . They was used to anonymous as
02:19	a person and in recent decades it's become the pronoun
02:22	for some trans , non binary and gender queer people
02:24	, although there have always been people who don't identify
02:27	with the binary gender to get into all of the
02:29	ways they've expressed that through language would be a whole
02:32	other video . However , not all changes have a
02:34	meaningful explanation . Some varieties of spanish spoken in spain
02:38	still maintain a difference between casa , house and casa
02:42	hunt . Meanwhile , other spanish varieties , especially those
02:45	in South America pronounced both words with us as in
02:48	casa . There's no real reason for this change though
02:51	. Language changes typically incremental , but sometimes there's a
02:54	situation that's perfect for the creation of an entirely new
02:57	language . Let's head to the thought that want to
02:59	look at one example in Nicaragua before the 1970s ,
03:03	there wasn't a deaf community , there were deaf people
03:06	. Sure , but because of a lack of structural
03:08	support , they stayed at home in their villages and
03:11	didn't share a common language . Instead , they used
03:13	various ad hoc gestures to communicate with their hearing ,
03:16	family and friends known as home sign . This changed
03:19	in 1977 when Nicaragua established the first school for the
03:23	deaf and brought together deaf Children of a wide age
03:25	range from villages all over the country . The curriculum
03:28	of the school didn't try to teach kids assigned language
03:31	, instead focusing on spanish lip reading and some finger
03:34	spelling of spanish words , but students were signing with
03:37	each other anyway and they wove together bits of their
03:39	individual home science into a richer , more complicated system
03:43	. Something closer to a language . What's interesting is
03:46	what happened after that the next generation of deaf Children
03:49	who arrived at the school were exposed to this intermediate
03:52	communication system and took it a step further . They
03:56	made it into a full fledged language , one that
03:58	had a complex and systematic grammar like any other language
04:02	. The older generation of Children had used pointing sometimes
04:05	, but the younger generation used pointing more systematically to
04:08	track repeated mentions of the same person pointing , acted
04:12	like a pronoun according to linguist and single linguists around
04:16	the world . Were fascinated . Here was an opportunity
04:19	to study how a language could evolve from scratch .
04:21	In real time . It seems to take exposure to
04:24	something linguistic enough , like the intermediate combination of home
04:27	science at a young age and as part of a
04:30	community , Children's brains will sort out that input into
04:34	language . In this case , the students created what's
04:36	now known as sn idioma disinvest in Nicaragua , the
04:40	official Nicaraguan sign language . Thanks thought bubble . Nicaraguan
04:44	sign language is a unique example . A more common
04:47	observable type of language change occurs because of language contact
04:51	, which is one languages in the same area influence
04:54	each other . It's very common for languages to come
04:56	in contact with other languages . In fact , multilingualism
05:00	has been the norman human society . When languages are
05:02	in contact , there are broadly two possible ways they
05:05	can influence each other . First languages can become more
05:08	like each other . That is , they can converge
05:10	click continents are a typical feature of languages in the
05:13	Khoisan family . In southern Africa , there are a
05:15	number of Bantu languages in southwestern Zambia that also have
05:19	cliques . Even though this isn't a typical feature in
05:21	Bantu languages , the clicks in the Zambian , Bantu
05:24	languages are a result of long term contact between Khoisan
05:28	and Bantu languages and Zambia . Or second languages can
05:31	diverge and become less similar on the northernmost island of
05:34	the pacific nation of Vanuatu . There are 17 different
05:38	languages . These languages are all part of the oceanic
05:41	language family and have lots in common in terms of
05:44	their grammar . But if all diverged in their vocabulary
05:47	in this context , language contact has made speakers willingly
05:51	diverge as they change words to be more distinct from
05:54	each other . If two or more languages aren't understandable
05:56	to each other , we say they're mutually unintelligible .
06:00	When you put speakers of mutually unintelligible languages together ,
06:04	they'll use elements of their language to create some basic
06:07	way of communicating . Generally known as a pigeon .
06:10	If the pigeon is spoken for long enough in a
06:12	community where Children are learning it , they'll use the
06:14	same skills as the Nicaraguan deaf Children did to expand
06:18	it into a language . These languages are known as
06:20	creoles . There are many across the world , often
06:23	with names that reflect these origins such as Haitian creole
06:26	, creole in Australia and talk piston and Papua new
06:29	guinea , which means talk pidgin . When talking about
06:31	creole languages . We should note the power asymmetry between
06:34	the people and languages involved . The language contact was
06:38	usually the result of Western colonization , during which colonists
06:41	exploited people who spoke other mother tongues . This power
06:45	imbalance explains why a Creole languages often made up of
06:48	more words from the dominant language . But creoles are
06:51	languages in their own right , just like french isn't
06:53	bad latin for being descended from it . And many
06:56	creole languages have gained recognition and support . For example
06:59	, Top Piston and Haitian creole are both official national
07:02	languages of their respective countries . When it comes to
07:04	studying language change , we've been lucky enough to have
07:07	audio recordings of some major languages and their changes for
07:10	over a century now , but for anything older than
07:13	that , we have to rely on the writing system
07:15	for evidence and hope that it reflects major features of
07:17	how the language is spoken . The good news is
07:19	for a language like tibetan or english for that matter
07:22	, There are over 1000 years of written examples that
07:25	show us the path the language took . Research that
07:28	looks at the change that happens to a language over
07:30	time with this kind of evidence is called Dia chronic
07:33	analysis . Meanwhile , studying variation across dialects or languages
07:38	at the same point in time is known as sing
07:40	chronic analysis . English has father , Dutch , voter
07:44	, Icelandic , father and german fatter . A couple
07:47	of centuries ago , linguists using sing chronic analysis realized
07:51	that similarities like this were too much to be a
07:54	coincidence words across different languages that share a common origin
07:58	, like the different words for father are known as
08:00	cognitive . Its historical linguists now know that languages like
08:04	dutch , english and german have lots of easy to
08:06	see cognitive because their paths diverged only in the last
08:09	couple of 1000 years to prove relationship between languages ,
08:13	historical linguists make giant spreadsheets of words that might be
08:16	related and look for systematic patterns across the whole .
08:19	We can reconstruct with the common ancestor word , could
08:22	have sounded like something like fodder because it's the oldest
08:26	version of a dramatic language . We can reconstruct .
08:28	It's known as proto Germanic by the way . Historical
08:31	linguists use that asterix to signal that it's still a
08:33	hypothesis . We can go back even further analyzing proto
08:37	Germanic fodder , latin , potter and Sanskrit . Pitter
08:41	Sanskrit is the classical language that gave rise to modern
08:44	languages like hindi and nepali . While the dramatic languages
08:47	all have fa or ba at the start , these
08:50	more historically distant languages start with the post sound .
08:53	Since the oldest languages start with pa historical linguists hypothesized
08:57	that father must have begun with pa and later changed
09:00	to fa . In the newer Germanic languages , we
09:03	see this and other cognitive to like latin pod and
09:06	english , foot or latin playinus for something flat and
09:10	english field . These and hundreds of other cognitive proved
09:13	that the pa fa swap is a pattern , not
09:16	a fluke , so there must be a common ancestor
09:18	among these languages . If there are only a few
09:22	similar words , it might be a case of one
09:24	language borrowing from another or simply a coincidence , This
09:26	process of methodically piecing together a probable common ancestor language
09:30	from existing records is called comparative reconstruction , but historical
09:34	linguists don't stop there . We need to find further
09:37	similarities among other sounds . To establish a wider pattern
09:40	, linguists then combine this with information about the grammar
09:43	and evidence from other fields like history , archaeology and
09:46	even genetics to conclude that the languages themselves are related
09:50	comparing unrelated languages is interesting too , because it can
09:53	tell us things about language in general . But this
09:55	is referred to as language typology rather than historical linguistics
09:59	. It takes thousands and thousands of cells in a
10:02	table containing words like father and potter and foster to
10:05	reconstruct hypothesized ancestor language called a proto language . Centuries
10:10	of dedicated and meticulous work to find cognitive and understand
10:14	language change backwards has led to the reconstruction of the
10:18	proto indo european language . It was probably spoken around
10:21	6000 years ago by a group of nomadic pastoralists somewhere
10:25	east of europe and evolved into many of the languages
10:28	of europe and the indian subcontinent . However , everything
10:31	that we know about their language and culture is only
10:34	an educated guess . We can only guess what it
10:37	would have sounded like because it was before there were
10:39	written records and it's not like audio recordings existed thousands
10:42	of years ago . Other large language families that have
10:45	been reconstructed around the world include proto Semitic , the
10:48	ancestor language of Semitic languages like Arabic mm hark and
10:52	hebrew . Proto algonquian , the ancestor language of Algonquian
10:55	languages like Cree , Ojibwe and massachusetts . Proto austronesian
10:59	. The ancestor language of Austronesian languages like japanese ,
11:03	tagalog and Malagasy , proto pam and young in the
11:06	ancestor language of pam and young in languages like y'all
11:09	New corona and Darragh and proto Bantu , the ancestor
11:12	language of Bantu languages including Swahili , zulu and Shona
11:16	. Sometimes even after years of careful study , a
11:19	language doesn't have any evidence of being related to any
11:22	other language near or far , these languages are known
11:25	as isolates and examples include bask in spain and France
11:29	. I knew in japan and korean they might have
11:32	originated independently like nicaraguan sign language or we may have
11:35	lost all record of their relatives regardless at some point
11:39	, we just can't go back any further . Just
11:41	like the real horizon , The path of languages taken
11:44	is no longer visible to us . But there are
11:46	fewer than 100 known isolates and many of the world's
11:49	7000 languages can be grouped into larger families using methods
11:53	like comparative reconstruction . In the next video , we'll
11:56	learn more about how there came to be so many
11:58	languages around the world . Thanks for watching this episode
12:01	of crash course linguistics . If you want to help
12:03	keep all crash course free for everybody forever , you
12:06	can join our community on Patreon .

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